Conserving Transparent Photo Slides @ LBPL

Today, at the Long Beach Public Library, Long Beach History collection, I removed rubber bands, counted, organized, labeled and re-housed over 1,037 transparent photographic slides.

These slides, measuring 2″ x 2″, depicted the various events of and branches in the Long Beach Public Library system dating from the 1960s- 1990s. They were originally stored in a treated wooden box and wrapped in rubber bands, which had hardened and stuck to the objects over time. It was so satisfying to be able to re-house these items to archival, acid-free boxes!

The next phase will be to digitize the images for access on the Long Beach Public Library, Digital Archive.

Rubber bands degrade, harden and stick to objects over time.

This is a great example as to why it is not an archival “best practice” to use rubber bands to bind objects in collections.